


[Abandoned WIP] Without Malice Aforethought

by istia



Series: Abandoned WIP [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, POV John Sheppard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 20:58:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1913577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Those freaking alien rituals will get you every damned time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[Abandoned WIP] Without Malice Aforethought

**Author's Note:**

> This story was going to be an Aliens Make Them _Not_ Do It. The price the people of this planet pay to create a large, sustained population is not allowing same-sex relationships. Everyone has to procreate (barren individuals contribute in other ways) and they've produced the means to make it impossible for people of the same sex to engage together. Not a homophobic society, but one consciously paying its own harsh price in its focus on defeating the Wraith. Sheppard and McKay, hiding their relationship, are accidentally affected/infected during their stay, then deal with the emotional and physical effects while searching for a normalising cure.

Achieving advanced civilization in the Pegasus galaxy sometimes required making deals with the Devil.

The Hoffans had introduced the Atlantis expedition to this concept early in their acclimation here, and the Genii soon afterwards expanded on and illustrated the lesson for them. The Olesians, with a penal colony situated around the stargate to provide ready fodder for any Wraith who visited the world, had been their most recent hands-on reminder that technological development was dependent on a society's securing itself a degree of protection from cullings. Each of the few worlds that managed to rise to twentieth-century Earth levels negotiated themselves a different deal, but that a sacrifice of something basic in their make-up had to take place was a given.

"Maybe they've got giant underground bunkers full of fruit preserves and lace caps and, and pitchforks and other such crude, but arguably relatively effective, pre-industrial implements of survival." McKay's tone was pure disgruntlement as he scowled down at his sensor, whose tiny screen was a mosaic of blinking lights indicating an array of power sources. He was regarding the throbbing display with a good deal less enthusiasm than he usually showed for a single faint energy signature.

John knew how he felt. He sighed, squared his shoulders, and stepped onto the path that led down from the forested hillside to the concrete and glass city spread below them like a jeweled brooch cupped in a hand.

"I really don't think they're secretly Amish, Rodney. They just don't give out that special vibe, you know?"

"Oh, I know exactly what you mean, Colonel." McKay glanced around as a dozen uniformed men surrounded them with the efficiency of a trained maneuver when they were halfway down the hill. "And remind me again why we're risking ourselves here when it can't possibly, judging from previous all too vivid experiences that are, I might add, permanently branded onto my invaluable--?"

"Hi!" John raised his voice and added an amiable smile as a man wearing a pointy hat, in contrast to the round ones the rest of the soldiers wore, stepped forward and swept his eyes over them; John took the opportunity to do his own quick survey of their captors in turn.

When the leader's eyes, cool under the plastic brim of the hat, settled back on him, John said, "I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. This is Dr. Rodney McKay, diplomat Teyla Emmagan, and Specialist Ronon Dex." No harm in piling on their titles, he figured, since technological advancement usually also meant exaggerated social stratification and respect for earned status. And he hadn't had to come to Pegasus to learn that basic lesson.

McKay and Ronon did their synchronized, one-hand flap, mute "hello"--which no one ever seemed to find quite as amusing as he did--while Teyla broadcast her diplomat's credentials with a respectful nod of her head and a warm, friendly smile.

"Unit Chief Amon. What is your business here?"

"We are traders and explorers." Teyla had a gift for looking trustworthy and harmless even with a P90 pinned to her Tac vest. "We hoped your people might be willing to exchange information, and possibly also goods and materials that would benefit both our worlds."

"Information on the Wraith, specifically," John added. "No industrial espionage worries."

McKay snorted a laugh. Unit Chief Amon glanced at him, then turned his assessing gaze back to John, who did his best to project his own brand of earnest trustworthiness and harmlessness, though all he sparked in Amon in response--as per usual in these situations, dammit--were narrowed eyes and a grimly turned-down mouth. Amon unhooked a metal box from his belt and spoke a code into it. From the corner of his eye, John glimpsed McKay craning to look at the radio, a transistor that seemed to be a fairly impressive example of miniaturization. Judging from their weapons and the city itself--a sky-scraping landscape behind the soldiers with an obscene amount of reflective glass glittering in the midday sun--these people were a couple of generations more advanced than the Hoffans and a decade or two beyond the Genii.

And didn't that just make the queasiness in his belly more acute.

Amon received a clipped code in reply and hooked his radio back to his belt. He gestured and his men fanned out into a V formation around John and his team, leaving the rough path to the city clear.

"This way." Amon swept his hand, palm up, in a universal sign of permission to proceed. The welcome didn't reach either his eyes or his voice. "The Overseers are willing to meet with you."

"Overseers. Cool. They sound...important." He lifted an eyebrow in Amon's direction, but received no acknowledgement.

Vehicles were waiting at the base of the hill, which didn't raise as much of the gloomy wariness from McKay's face as the chance to escape walking miles on a hard asphalt-like surface would normally have done. If anything, he looked even more sour as he settled on the padded, bench backseat of a wide-bodied, large-wheeled hybrid between a van and a convertible, with a lot of armor plating and a camouflage paint job. It was wide enough to seat all four of them together, with Teyla and McKay between himself and Ronon. Soldiers occupied the bench seats in front of and behind them, with Amon beside the driver at the very front. The last four soldiers stood on running boards, two on either side. He wondered idly if they were trained to shoot from that precarious position and how speed and the vagaries of terrain might affect their accuracy.

"Hmm, they appear capable of achieving a speed of at least sixty-five kilometers." McKay made the announcement with his aggrieved tone when discovering the coffee pot was empty. He shuffled again on the seat, closer to John, their thighs now pressing together from hip to knee, presumably in an awkward but gentlemanly attempt not to crowd Teyla that he possibly wasn't even conscious of doing. John leaned forward just enough to see the slight smile on Teyla's face; she turned as he looked at her and the smile deepened with shared amusement and affection across the bowed head of the oblivious man between them.

John leaned back and settled his arm across the back of the bench behind McKay. "Well, that's good. It should be a nice quick trip and we'll all be spared your whining about your corns. That can only be a good thing, so cheer up."

McKay stopped staring at his sensor and turned a blinking look onto him. "What? What the hell are you talking about? I have never mentioned having corns--"

"What're corns?"

McKay shot a distracted look past Teyla at Ronon. "A patch of hardened, hornlike skin on the toes that some people--most likely ones who do not take proper care of their feet because, hello? emory boards have a definable and proven function!--acquire from badly fitting footwear or too much walking."

"Or, of course, poor podiatric hygiene," John said lazily, because the city was still a ways off, shimmering in a mist of polluted air, and the amusement of watching for one of the running-board soldiers to slip off was waning. They appeared to be superglued in place.

"Exactly. Judicious use of an emory board could forestall so many unsavory events."

"And remind me never to visit you while you're in the middle of your weekly foot care session."

"Well, it's not like I actually can take time from my incredibly busy schedule of saving the entire--"

"So, Ronon, now you know what corns are. Learn something new every day, hanging out with our good Dr. McKay, don't we?"

"Just another word for a callus."

"Yup." John laughed as McKay flapped a hand at both of them, the McKay equivalent of flipping the bird, useful because he could utilize it in all company. And did.

"Though I've never heard of an emory board."

"Oh, like there's any chance of drawing me out on that one. Fool me once...." McKay trailed off meaningfully and John suppressed another grin.

"I believe Dr. McKay might be referring to something similar to a scraper stone," Teyla said.

"Yes, yes, a pumice stone, a volcanic rock, or whatever the local equivalent is, only not made of stone. An emory board and a pumice stone are the first defense against disfiguring and debilitating hindrances such as corns and calluses."

"Good to know." John sat forward as they entered the outer row of buildings.

Beside him, he could feel McKay's attention, which hadn't ever wandered far from his handheld sensor, snapping to, all business now, his body acquiring the state of tense readiness he lived in when they were in any unknown and potentially dangerous situation. The fact McKay continued to _want_ to go on missions, despite having to work through his fear almost every damned time, was one trait that more than offset some of his more negative qualities.

McKay didn't go off-world only from a sense of duty or responsibility, the way Beckett and Zelenka did, but because McKay, not very far down, had an adventurer's streak in him a mile wide. It called to John, like to like in two ostensibly unlike packages. 

While continuing to watch the city opening up around them as the car moved slowly along smooth streets gleaming with new tarmac, he jostled McKay's knee. McKay glanced up at him, then took the reminder, sighed out a long, deep breath and consciously let go of some of the tension.

Up close, the city was revealed to be in an apparent state of construction. A few of the buildings looked finished, but others were in various stages of production from skeletons of steel girders to three-quarters completed. Everything from the roads to the concrete faces of the buildings looked new and shiny.

They pulled up before a square, three-story building with a vaguely Art Deco design, but with an emphasis on utility rather than decoration. There was, however, a large, spread-winged bird of some sort, long legged and crested like a heron, in bas relief on a carved stone plague set above the double wooden doors. He got a glimpse of delicate carving on the feathers as Amon ushered them inside and across a floor covered with rugs that were springy under his boots.

They entered a large room with four long tables set in a square. Two women and a man were seated at one of the tables. All three rose. Soldiers standing at intervals around the room didn't move, but kept their eyes fixed on John and his team. Large windows covered in a gauzy material let filtered light into the high-ceilinged room, gleaming on the paleness of new wood.

The older of the women standing at the table nodded to Amon. "Thank you, Unit Chief." He left the room, closing the door behind him. The woman smiled at them.

"I am Overseer Ganget." She indicated the man and woman standing to her left. "Overseer Mila and Overseer Fain." All three smiled.

"Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard." He went through the introductions, McKay and Ronon did their little mirrored waves, Teyla made diplomatic noises, and they stood abreast facing the three Overseers.

"Our apologies for the armed greeting you received. We are understandably security conscious in these difficult times. Collaborators with the Wraith appear to be increasing."

He smiled with what he hoped was disarming affability. "You don't really seem to be overly bothered by the Wraith."

All three of the Overseers blinked at him, then exchanged a look between themselves before Ganget said, "I'm sorry, I don't believe we understand what you mean."

Before he could speak, McKay said, "You have a level of technological advancement that outstrips anything we've seen elsewhere. Well, other than-- Ow!"

McKay turned an incendiary glare on John, who offered the Overseers another hopefully disarming smile. "What he means is that we haven't encountered any other people who have been able to sustain the standard of living you seem to enjoy. Regular cullings mean most people keep having to start from scratch over and over again. It's hard to get ahead like that."

Overseer Mila had a barrel chest and the deep voice to go with it, speaking in quiet, sonorous tones that seemed to fill the airy space. "Our experiences are identical. We are, in fact, as you perhaps noticed, in the process of raising this city since the Wraith demolished our former home in the last culling, about eighteen months ago. We were not expecting them to come in such numbers again so soon, but we understand they were all woken prematurely."

John glanced away from the steady gaze. Beside him, Teyla's calm voice filled the void. "That does seem to be the unfortunate truth. We have seen many devastated worlds as the Wraith appear to be culling in numbers far greater than histories suggest has ever happened before. It is good to find a population that is managing to flourish as yours is."

The Overseers relaxed and Ganget raised a courteous hand toward chairs at the table opposite them.

"Our ancestors made wise decisions that have served our people well and continue to do so, even as the incursions become more pronounced." Ganget spoke as they settled into chairs. "We continue to flourish despite the Wraith because of a basic truth our people discovered and have clung to since."

"I'm not sure I completely understand." Teyla made the words into a quiet question.

Ganget's smile was gentle, but laced with shadows. "Our ancestors realized many generations ago that the key to any people's progress lies with the number of survivors. The Wraith cannot be avoided, and it must be accepted that they will always return. Nevertheless, as long as sufficient numbers survive a culling, we can salvage what is left and rebuild with a speed that allows for further development to occur within the same generation. Our ability to keep our society advancing despite cullings is solely due to our maintaining a large population base."

"So your basic philosophy is to produce lots of babies so you can afford to lose a good percentage of them every few years. That's sensibly...utilitarian."

John grimaced at McKay's acerbic tone while silently agreeing with his summation. He tensed for a possibly negative reaction, but all three of the Overseers merely looked somber.

Ganget spread her hands, then let them fall in a gesture redolent of helplessness and acceptance. "Our people suffered for many generations exactly as other worlds do, Dr. McKay, and, like others, we were continually reduced to a primitive state. We lost people just as do all worlds on which the Wraith prey, but we didn't have enough left to make up for those we lost. Our predecessors saw no purpose to be served in continuing in this passive state."

She sat back in her chair, eyes hooded yet serene with the restrictive parameters of their lives and history.

Overseer Fain spoke for the first time, her fluting voice raising tender echoes in the large room. "The Wraith's greatest weapon is their ability to keep us limited in all choices, small and impoverished victims. If we build, they destroy so we have to start again for basic survival. If we prosper and have too many children, they cull us more severely than usual. We are still, now, victims, but we live with the conviction that, one day, as long as we keep moving forward, one of our generations will discover a means to defeat the Wraith entirely. Our hope lies in accruing sufficient _numbers_ , a pool of thinking, researching, focused individuals with one main purpose in mind."

Her eyes shone with a fanatical gleam that made John uncomfortable enough to look away. He glimpsed McKay slumping back in his seat, lips pressed together, and, beyond him, Teyla offering the Overseers a smile of commiseration and support.

"The Wraith shape our lives in countless ways beyond our control," she said. "It's good to meet people who have found a means of hope."

"Yes, hope is all--as long as there is a basis for it." Fain nodded, the gleam in her eye as bright as the materials of their newly wrought city.

"We hope you will stay the night and accept our hospitality." Ganget stood and John followed, his team rising around him like a warm tidal pool. "We would be pleased to show you around our science facilities and discuss with you means in which we might be able to aid each other's efforts against the Wraith."

He made appropriate noises of acceptance. Teyla stayed with the Overseers to discuss trade options, with Ronon as back-up, while he and McKay spent the rest of the day touring military and scientific sites. Their visits included, to his and McKay's shared amusement--which McKay for once kept down to a quiet chortle after John elbowed him in the ribs--a catacombs built on the northern outskirts of the city and extending out under the edge of a forest.

"We maintain several such vaults." Their guide was an earnest young man appointed to the task by Ganget. "They're located in various spots around the planet, with duplicates of all our records and research materials in each."

"So, if the Wraith find one, the other archives have a chance of survival. Nice." John smiled at the young man, who was far too grave to smile back.

"Exactly. In major cullings, those times when they also destroy our cities, they have often discovered several of our vaults, but they've never yet discovered all of them." His voice and face showed no trace of Overseer Fain's fanaticism, but it vibrated with pride in his people's continual risings up again after being stomped down.

John lost his smile, sadness creeping along his nerves as he surveyed what really were remarkable achievements considering the conditions these people worked under, always with the knowledge their efforts would be destroyed again soon, possibly even today. Every person within the Wraith's feeding territory lived with the same uncertainty when they woke each morning, but for these people, their faith in their ability to eventually defeat the Wraith seemed to have acquired an almost fetishistic fixation on their scientific advancements.

He had the uneasy sense these people would consider no sacrifice too great if it preserved their collective accomplishments for the next generation. Even McKay became subdued as they glimpsed intent people industriously working on various projects deemed fit for strangers to know about. John wondered how much and what kind of activity was occurring in places they'd never see, and saw a similar thought in McKay's pursed lips and narrowed, assessing gaze as it darted into every corner of each lab they entered.

"Nothing terribly extraordinary," McKay whispered to him as they trailed their guide toward the exit of the third building they'd toured. "I mean, yes, for this galaxy, for people working under these impossible conditions, they have made extraordinary advancements. Even just by what they're letting us see, they're several technological years ahead of the Genii. But unless they're hiding something light-years more complex than they have on show, they've got nothing that'll protect them from a culling, never mind let them strike back with any hope of making a dent in the collective Wraith threat any time soon."

John sighed and tightened his grip on the comfortingly familiar shape of his P90. It didn't help that these people were pretty damned likable.

Of course, the Hoffans had been, too. And equally as earnest and committed to their cause.

He checked in with Teyla as they were being driven back to the city, with McKay making noises about _going home_ and _food_ next to him. Teyla conveyed an invitation from Ganget for them to attend a dinner and entertainment that evening and stay the night.


End file.
